Planning a local currency for Stroud

We have two projects on the go – the planning of a community currency to support the local economy and discussion around what sort of indicators we need to tell us how our economy is doing in terms of sustainability. At a recent meeting Martin Quick criticised GDP as a measure of economic wealth.

We’ll also had some time to discuss ecological footprinting, before proposing our own more human-scale alternatives. Please come along with some in mind. The best indicator I know is infant mortality – it tells you so much about so many aspects of life in one simple number. This is the kind of sustainability indicator we want for Stroud.

We also talked about the local currency. Bernard Jarman presented a design for a currency which we discussed. We also have plans for a series of events throughout the autumn to build momentum for the launch of the currency in the spring. We’ll be organising a competition to choose the name and we hope to engage schoolchildren in designing the currency. We’re also planning a Lets Celebrate! day for 1st November in conjunction with Stroud Communiversity .